Seven hundred thousand doors in Minnesota. That's what ACT (America Coming Together) figures it needs to turn out enough voters to put Minnesota electoral votes safely in the blue state stack.
I've knocked on about a hundred.
At that rate, it would take me 3 years.
Luckily, I'm not alone. Volunteers are flocking in from all over the Twin Cities.
I had gotten to the point where I felt, I can't sit on the sidelines, and twiddle. I can't keep preaching to the choir.
I had an old German violin, in a green velvet case. It had belonged to my mother, who passed it on to me. Like any beginner on the violin, the sounds coming out of my instrument were not unlike like a tom cat shrieking in a windstorm.
Lies and deception, especially, were getting to me. My gut would start to twist reading conservative commentators in the New York Times. Every time I got on the freeway, I'd find myself muscled aside by another tax-free Dodge Ram pickup.
The bullies and the hard liners, and the my!me!mine! people were everywhere, it seemed.
I had been excited about my playing my mother's violin, attempting to stroke my caterwauls into velvet peals, when it hit me. Nero fiddling while Rome burned.
In A.D. 64, it turns out the Emperor Nero couldn't have fiddled while Rome burned. because the violin wasn't invented until the 1500's. But never mind. That image was my wake up call.
I signed up online. I liked America Coming Together, which is a progressive organization, not directly affiliated with the Kerry campaign, doing canvassing and get-out-the-vote actions. I got my assignment, a block or two in a black and Hmong neighborhood near the Minnesota capital, and my partner, a grass roots organizer named Betty in a staw hat with a huge flower in the front. She was one of those women who'd wear purple to an undertaker's convention. Tough as a dandelion root, a heart bigger than her handbag. We set out with our clipboard and our scripts.
We were coached to ask two questions. What issues are important to you? If the election was tomorrow, who would you vote for? If they were for Kerry, or leaning that way, we'd find out if they were registered, and encourage them to vote.
The people, it turned out, have a lot to say.
That day I managed to do three registrations, my personal record. One was a elderly couple. Another was a woman who'd moved in to care for her mother. She was upset with Randy Kelly, our Democratic St. Paul mayor who was stumping for Bush.
Another 50-something dad, hosting a block barbecue in his driveway, took several minutes away from his friends to talk to me. He was concerned about his sons, who were draft age.
That experience gave me a high. I'd had beginner's luck. Since then, I've stumbled down crooked steps, been baffled by people's lack of doorbells, had a few Bush supporters give me the brush off, but all in all, my experiences have been encouraging.
My canvassing buddy last weekend was there with her fired-up twenty year old son, who'd recruited five kids from the local community college in addition to his mom. We were assigned a working class white neighborhood, and I had a lot of "not- homes", so I finished my packet fairly quickly, while she was lingered on the first block. In three consecutive houses, the person she talked to had been recently laid off.
Voter registration is dramatically up in swing states.
As Deadlines Hit, Rolls of Voters Show Big Surge
Much of the gains are in areas with minority and low income populations.
That cheers me up immensely.
Hope is in the numbers.
That's 700,000 doors in Minnesota.